Today I went to check out the Kaleidoscope 3 event that started off at Governor’s Island. What is Kaleidoscope? Well its a huge party/parade that involves at least 100+ people in bright costumes walking around NYC and just having fun along the way. This was my first year going and it was so much fun! People definitely gave us the “what is going on?” stare as we walked through Governor’s Island and onto the ferry to Manhattan. For the entire set visit here
This past weekend during my annual get together with friends, I wanted to do something different with photobooth pictures. Last time we met up, I had set up a photobooth which turned out to be a great success and very fun with props. One of my friends suggested that I try something called the Jarvie Window.
It consists of me using a rayflash or equivalent and a wide angle or fisheye lens. I chose to go with the Peleng 8mm fisheye because it distorts faces a lot more than my Sigma 10-20mm. The fisheye is wide enough to catch the ring of light from the rayflash giving the illusion of a window or a portal and my friends had tons of fun with it!
So I have recently bought a instant film camera. No not a Polaroid but a Fuji instax mini 7s. It takes business card sized instant film and I totally love it. It reminds me of when I was younger when Polaroid was popular and how I used to take pictures using my moms Polaroid One Step.
The Fuji isn’t that expensive, when I bought it was $60 at adorama and a two pack film package (20 total photos) was $13. I wasted so many of the photos because I was trying to get used to the film but I think I got it now!
My first two photos (please don’t laugh), I should have read what the minimum focusing distance was :
Here are a few photos during an overcast day, around 2pm :
Not really knowing the settings of my cameras and when to use them, here I chose the “fine” setting where I was supposed to use it in partly cloudy days. Turned out way too bright and overexposed.
Realizing this I took a few more using the “bright” setting and the pictures came out better but still a bit over exposed. But I actually like the way they came out.
After taking 6 photos on my little walk, I actually only came out with one photo I liked and it was this one of the Apple Store in Manhattan.
I also just bought a closeup lens for my camera that also has a mirror so it will be easier to take photos of myself!
Went to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden with my mom this past weekend and it was so beautiful. We couldn’t have chosen a better day for it. The weather was nice and the sun was shining brightly. My mom hasn’t been to the Garden since I was born so I wanted to take her there to see some of her favorite things (flowers).
Too bad the Cherry blossom trees were past bloom though, they were a lot nicer two years ago when I came.
So today on a whim, my mom and I decided to make some Chinese Tea leaf eggs. We had a rough idea on how to make them so our recipe isn’t 100% exactly like all the others out there on the internet. We already had some of the ingredients at home since we use them for other things we cook so we mainly just needed the eggs and tea leaves from the supermarket.
First off here are the ingredients to make the eggs:
Eggs
Boiling water
6 tablespoons low-sodium dark soy sauce
2 tbsp black tea
1 cinnamon stick
2 star anise
2 small pieces of dried tangerine/orange peel
2 small pieces of dang gui, Chinese Angelica Root
Directions :
1. Boil the eggs in plain water till about 80% cooked and take them out of the water and leave them on the side to cool down a bit.
2. Use a spoon to tap the eggs so that the shells crack just a tiny bit so that the flavor from the ingredients can seep into the egg as well as create the cracked egg look.
3. Put enough water in another pot to cover the eggs and add the ingredients and bring to a boil. Add the eggs and let simmer 2-3hrs.
Final thoughts:
I wish we had put more tea leaves into the mixture so we had a stronger tea taste. But after eating 2 eggs, I can’t really complain
So this past weekend I had the privilege to take some photos intended for promotional items for an auto shop that is opening up this month. It was a lot of fun and even though I’m not a car fanatic I started to think about them differently. I am still learning though on what angles best works for cars as well as post processing techniques that will make the car pop.
We had a total of 10 cars that showed up, all of whom were owned by previous customers of Tach Motor Works. The entire shoot took about 3hrs because it was a lot of driving around and maneuvering the cars for the pictures. I’m very excited about how the flyer came out and very happy that my photos fit the job.
Even with being scared of heights, I still climbed on top of the office area to grab some photos of the overall shop area :
There are tons more photos that I did not post on flickr but here are the flyers that were designed by Daniel Pacificador all photos taken by me.
